The Wasp, 1913 · page 47 of 364
The Wasp — 1913 — page 47: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This appears to be a narrative excerpt rather than a cartoon. It depicts a tense shipboard negotiation between a desperate man (Burnham) and a shipmaster (Smith). The scene satirizes the precarious position of penniless white men in 19th-century colonial Caribbean waters. The shipmaster cynically offers Burnham a berth to Barbados after a crew member's death, framing it as Providence. Burnham immediately recognizes this as a trap—suspecting the shipmaster intends to sell him into indentured servitude or bondage to a Caribbean planter, a common practice for desperate laborers. Burnham counters by inventing a connection to "Mr. Angus McLatchy of Kingston," a presumably respectable contact whose patronage would protect him from exploitation. The satire critiques the vulnerability of poor white men in colonial systems and how quickly they learned to navigate—or fabricate—protective social connections to avoid being trafficked as laborers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
46 THE WASP to the human instrument o’ yer release from death by thirst an’ starvation,” he said. “Two days out 0’ Boston we lost a poor sinner overboard. In that I see the hand o’ Providence, young man. Ye kin take his berth an’ help us work the brig down to Barbados.” A shadow as of speculation crossed Mr. Burn- ham’s glinting gaze. He contemplated the shipmas- ter with an open sneer of suspicion, for he had al- ready gathered enough knowledge of these western waters to lead him to suspect that a penniless and friendless white man here, be he gentle or simple, need look for neither charity nor justice. In his mind’s eye he saw himself being sold by the shipmaster to some unconcerned planter in Bar- bados. So he stared sneeringly and questioningly at Mr. Smith until the glance of that worthy wav- ered and fell. “Barbados will suit me to a wish,” he said, “for I doubt not that my friend, Mr. Angus McLatchy, of Kingston, has an agent or correspondent in that island.” Comichooks.com